Ten years ago I lost 28 pounds on Weight Watchers. 20 years ago I lost 35 pounds on The Zone. It cost a lot of money or was a lot of work. It helped but wasn’t fully empowering me.
This time I changed my life style, moved to a healthier climate, started to exercise, started to eat and cook right and healthier and decided to empower my self the whole way. I decided to go on a 1500 calorie a day diet. I found this app FatSecret and it was easy as pie (a low calorie vegetable pie 😀).
Kidding aside, I love entering food choices on the app of what I plan to eat or buy before, I do it, so I educate myself. I learn how many calories and I decide to grill a delicious piece of tuna with garlic and black bean sauce on it with a bunch of asparagus and a spray of zero calorie butter, or give in to a fatty piece of meat and mash potatoes. For me the choice was easy. Instead of dessert I grill berries in aluminum foil on the grill and drizzle honey and cinnamon and add a vanilla yogurt or oats to it. It is delicious and low calorie. That is just dinner. I eat three to four times a day and I am full always.
Turns out FatSecret says for my height, weight and age I could eat 2225 calories a day and still lose a pound a week. But I can eat 1500 and lose two pounds a week.
The app tells you the balance you are eating of protein, carbs and fat and had many tips when you need them or ask.
Well it started working great. I set a goal of 30 pounds. So far, in under 12 weeks, (and I have been able to cheat here and there a little) but I have always stayed at or under 1500 cal a day, sometimes went to 1600 or 1800, but rarely if ever, I eat at home or eat out — and I have already lost 16.5 pounds.
I am a 64 year old man with a busy career, raising a child and to boot, I have had some stresses that I don’t need to mention here (from work stress to family stress to personal health issues) that motivated me more to prove to myself that I was in control of me throughout it all.
This may seem counterintuitive, many would give up saying “it’s too hard to do” but it isn’t. It is YOU with YOU. No external forces telling you what to do. You and your app.
I knew that if I held to my diet with modest exercise and continual improvement in finding foods that I could eat enough and lose weight, and start to see the changes each day, that I would feel better about me. And well, I did and I have.
And I’m single. And when the second chin took its leave of absence, and when I wore a tee shirt and the belly started to disappear, I started to look good. And truth is, people notice when you feel good and look good. It is all in how you carry yourself daily and through life. And you one day, all if a sudden notice that you attract people and energy. And you give more to yourself and others in thought, word and deed.
Now for a cliche. They are almost always right. Some poeple my age may remember Ewell Gibbons the nutritionist who said “you are what you eat.” He was right. You create your life, so get to it. All aspects of it. What you eat, what you feel, what you say, what you think and what you look like. So eat what is right and what YOU want to feel like and look like. Say what you want to be like. Think the positive thoughts for who you want YOU and the world to be. Even dress how you want to feel. You have the power.
My newest role model is the late Stephen Hawkins. A genius not only for his great mind and theories of the universe and about life and how we live it, but because of how he chose to LIVE.
This disabled quadraplegic man who had to blow through a straw in a wheelchair to move, to type, to speak and communicate through a computer, challenged himself and achieved great things because he dared to do it and he wanted to live and lived by many measures a very full life and affected millions of us because of his singular life. If he can do all he did, we can lose a few pounds and achieve our life goals. And I mean simple life goals. I don’t mean fame and fortune. I mean simple daily things that make us happy. I mean good health. Ask yourself this question, “how many hours a day do I do things and say things that make me happy at home and at work and with myself, and how many hours a day am I less than happy, maybe surrounded by thoughts or people who aren’t a part of “happy and healthy” at work or at home, with family and with colleagues and friends?” Well, if that answer has any negative hours that you live, do your best to have an ideal of 24/7 happy and healthy and 0/0 unhappy and healthy. I moved 3,000 miles to change my life at 63 and be happier and healthier. Scary? A little, but I did it and doors opened. When you take control, it becomes your life. I have had four good careers in my life and it wasn’t easy to change. When things go awry, change it or move on and make it better and know there is a better plan for you.
So when I face hardship financially, health issues with me and my family (and I don’t mean easy ones (loved ones facing mental health issues or addiction and me facing a little but of cancer), I look to my diet, I eat better, I ride a bike, I swim in the ocean, I even ride the new scooter craze The Bird and I make sure I dare to be one tenth as brave as Stephen Hawkins who couldn’t do what I have within me to do, but he used what he had the power to do and achieved more than most of us in life. Do dare to do it.
You can see I am passionate about change at any age, about life and how we see it and seek out better health and happiness. And through it all I am happy. And I am healthy, incredibly healthy.
Get you FatSecret and get started one calorie at a time.
I have shared the FatSecret app with many people because it is free and easy. There are more things in life that are free and easy than we know in this digital age. Find them.
All the best in your efforts to be the healthier and happier you. I have found it. You can too.
Tom